When they were done with their worksheet (graphic organizer), they began work on their Clifford Newsletter project. I thought this would be a great way for them to see what happened in the other books.

Here are the requirements for their Clifford Newsletter project:

The project must be in sections like a newsletter. They must have Headings/Headlines, and it must be neat and colorful.

Their newsletter must have two parts from each of the following:

A: Story summary, main character article, supporting character article, write a new ending to the story.

B: Advice column for one of the characters, editorial about an issue in the book, comic strip that shows the plot, advertisements/puzzles that relate to the plot.

This is the final teaching day for the Clifford Books reading unit. They will have the next two days in class and one computer lab day to work on their newsletter. Then they will present.

Like this:

They turned over their verb worksheet and made a T-Chart. The headings were Cognados y Conocidos (Cognates & Known words).

They filled in their T-chart while looking through the book. Again, Student A filled out the chart from the right side, while student B filled out from the left side as they turned the pages. They do have to wait for a bit occasionally but cannot simply allow one to do the work.

Next the students read the book with their partner for the first time. They actually read the book three times.

First time: Read through taking turns without stopping to decide what the words meant or looking anything up. It is important that they read aloud so they do not skim, but read & hear every word.

Second time: Read through and discuss what you think is going on for each page (still not looking anything up).

Third time: read & look up any words that you absolutely need to know for context.

Then they got out their notebooks to do some writing. I showed them the following poster:

I made sure they understood the words. I used an example from an unread Clifford book to write examples of each on the yellow sticky notes.

They found one example of each and wrote it in their notebook. Tomorrow they will write them on sticky notes and compare their book to other student’s Clifford books.

Like this:

First, I projected a page from a Clifford book. It was a page from a book that none of them had selected. In their class notebooks, they wrote what they thought the page read in English.

They shared their thoughts, then we talked about what strategies they used to decide what the page said. As they were announced, a student listed them on the board, they did a great job!

Next, I gave each pair of students a QR Code that linked to the Linoit page for their book. If you remember, they were in the computer lab last Thursday. I had a Linoit canvas set up for each book and the students typed predictions in Spanish for each book. Today when they received the QR Codes and read the predictions about the book they chose to read, they copied the predictions into their notebook and said whether they agree or disagree (in Spanish).

The final activity was to fill out this worksheet: Verbos de Clifford. They had to list the verbs they found in the book, decide what the infinitive is, the English translation, and what tense the verb is. This worked well since they are just learning the preterite and most of the books are present and preterite tense.

Just before the end of the hour they completed exit slips . I love this style of exit slip. I have borrowed it from another blog, I think the Creative Language Blog but I cannot remember…. If it is yours, please let me know and I will change the credit!

Their second task was to read a couple of the Clifford books in Spanish at this page as a sort of practice reading for their own Clifford book.

Thirdly: In their notebooks they wrote a list of strategies they used to figure out what the pages were saying in Spanish.

Tomorrow we will share those strategies. We will also begin reading the books. In the past I have had them first read silently to themselves without asking what words mean or looking them up. Then take turns reading aloud with a partner and looking up only words that seemed extremely important to the meaning of the sentences. Any thoughts?

Like this:

I started a reading unit with my Spanish students today. I am new at this so I am sharing what I did hoping for feedback….

We are reading the Clifford the Big Red Dog in Spanish. I know…. not authentic. One of my students gave me the set of ten books for Christmas. I thought maybe we should use them.

Day 1

I made a Power Point that had a cover of each book on a slide by itself. Nothing else is on the slide. We read the covers of the book and I checked to make sure they understood the title. I had them think about what the picture on the cover was to show them one example of using context.

I had a Word document with the title of each book. Students then folded a piece of paper into 10 parts. In each part they wrote the title of a different book and made 2 predictions of what might happen in that book. I instructed them to use very simple sentences and to only use the book, no dictionaries or translators. They were surprised with how much Spanish they could remember and use.

At the end of the hour each pair of students was assigned a book.That is as far as we got today. I am having them save their predictions to see how close they were.

The end result will be a Newsletter they will have to create. They will have to design a newsletter and include items such as a summary of the book, a description of the main character (Clifford), and advice column for an event in the book, a comic strip about the plot, and some advertisements, puzzles, etc.

If you have any suggestions for some activities in between today & the final project, please share. I am thinking about vocabulary montages, verb finds and the like.